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Those who came before We know desert bighorn have been in West Texas for a long time because we have evidence in the form of petroglyphs in remote rocky areas. These depictions of bighorn were made long before our recent advances in wildlife management, but they attest to the fact that Texas Parks and Wildlife Department were not the first ones to count bighorn in the Trans-Pecos. Petroglyphs identified in El Paso and Hudspeth counties and in the Sierra Diablo Mountains illustrate just how important these animals have been to local residents for hundreds and possibly thousands of years. These animals were important through the eons for meat, tool material, leather, and ceremonial uses.
Froylán Hernández/TPWD
photos .
he desert bighorn sheep in West Texas are simply a smaller and lighter-colored version of the same species that roams throughout the Rocky Mountains and western Canada. Desert bighorn are well-adapted to the arid rocky southwestern landscape where they often exist in clusters of populations occupying several mountain ranges. Through time, populations of bighorn may die out in one mountain range, only to be repopulated via immigrants from nearby habitat. Sometimes they never come back on their own and sometimes conditions change, and they pioneer to ranges they haven’t occupied before. Unlike their flatlander cousins, bighorn thrive in rugged and cliffy habitat called “escape terrain” because it offers them the opportunity to escape from predators that are not so adept at bouncing along the cliffs. Desert bighorns generally do well in remote areas as long as they have enough forage, water, and protection from disease and predation.
A healthy band of bighorns on the edge of Elephant Mountain with Santiago Peak in the background.
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The Journal of the Texas Trophy Hunters — THE VOICE OF TEXAS HUNTING®
January/February 2022 |
97
